Steve Tribe - Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time Lords

For Mandy always

And for Lucy my little star

CONTENTS

G ALLIFREY LIES in the constellation of Kasterborous, within a parsec or two of the centre of the galaxy, its binary location from Galactic Zero Centre being 10-0-11-00 : 02. The planet, its moons and its major settlements are shielded by a transduction barrier, and nothing can get past it.

Well, thats not true for a start.

GALLIFREY LIES in the constellation of Kasterborous, within a parsec or two of the centre of the galaxy, its binary location from Galactic Zero Centre being 10-0-11-00 : 02. The planet, its moons and its major settlements are shielded by hundreds of Sky Trenches, and nothing can get past them.

And thats not true either.

GALLIFREY LIES time-locked at the moment of its destruction on the final day of the Last Great Time War. Its dead. It burned. Its just rocks and dust.

And neither is any of that.

GALLIFREY LIES in the Sol system of Mutters Spiral at galactic coordinates 58-0-44-68-48-84, occupying a portion of space formerly reserved for a planet called Earth.

Or perhaps that didnt quite come off.

GALLIFREY LIES frozen in a parallel pocket universe, having been saved from annihilation by the combined forces of thirteen Doctors.

Or it did, at some point. Probably.

GALLIFREY LIES in the constellation of Kasterborous, within a parsec or two of the centre of the galaxy, its binary location from galactic zero centre being 10-0-11-00 : 02. It is hidden at the extreme end of the time continuum, for its own protection. Were at the end of the universe, give or take a star system.

Hmm... Maybe there is only one thing we can say with any degree of certainty:

GALLIFREY LIES.

THEY THAT WALK IN THE SHADOWS

S ome would say thats unfair, that its the Time Lords who lie. Dont blame Gallifrey; blame Rassilon. Out there in the cosmos, a belief that history is written by the victors is widely understood to be the mark of a Level Five civilisation. We Time Lords, of course, transcended such simplistic concepts when the universe was less than one-fifth of its present size. History, we understand, is rewritten by its future.

Or possibly as I found once that I will have written in the Preface to the Seventh Edition history is hogwash. The official hogwash is almost entirely fabricated, and only the myths and legends are true (partially, at least). No wonder the great and good of Gallifrey the High Council, the Inner Council, the Cardinals of the Academy, the old men in the funny hats are all so determined that you should never read this book.

The pages are slightly time-sensitive: anything I recall writing probably isnt here; what is here, I have already forgotten ever having been about to write it tomorrow. But if youre holding it now, in your hands, absorbing the words, learning and unlearning the heresies, then you know that this, at least, is one truth.

T heres an awful lot of planet out there. The Time Lords out-sit eternity inside a couple of protective bubbles, quivering at the mention of outside, never really seeing whats under our noses: Gallifrey is huge, and hugely beautiful.

What do we see, when we peer out of our little glass domes? Barren Drylands, bleak and cold. Ancient, twisted trees. Weeds sprouting among the bare grey rocks. Pathetic little patches of sludgy snow covering those ranges of forbidding, inhospitable mountains.

The Drylands

The Capitol the glorious citadel enclosed in its mighty glass dome

Yet our world is simply glowing with life. The colours are deeper and richer than you could possibly imagine. The rocks arent grey at all; theyre red, brown, purple and gold. And those pathetic little patches of sludgy snow are shining white in the light of the twin suns. At night the sky is a burned orange, and the leaves on the ulanda trees are bright silver. When those leaves catch the light each morning, it looks like a forest on fire. When autumn comes, the breeze blows through the branches like a song.

At some point in our ancient and forgotten history, before we disinfected our lives, we Time Lords must have gazed at our home world and marvelled. When we looked out across the continent of Wild Endeavour and first saw the mountains, we didnt label them, we named them: Perdition, Serenity, Solace and Solitude... They go on and on for ever. Slopes of deep red grass, capped with snow. When the second sun rises in the south, those mountains shine.

There is so much life among those rolling red pastures, and so much colour: the small yellow Sarlains, the velvet-red Madevinia aridosa, the golden-green Schlenk blossom; the flies and flubbles and flutterwings, the cats and mice and rovies, the rabbits and tafelshrews, the pig-rats and plungbolls, the trunkikes and the yaddlefish... Officially, Gallifrey possesses the only eco-system in the universe not to have been ravaged and wrecked by its primary indigenous species no animal has ever become extinct. Unofficially, of course, the Gallifreyans fought a war that ultimately destroyed the lot. Apart from the flies.

Or, rather, the Time Lords fought a war. Outside the citadels are the dismissed and the discarded of Gallifrey. Who has ever lived out there, in that barbarian garden? Outsiders, outcasts, rejects; a few mad souls who spurned the society of Time Lords. Shobogans. Nobody that matters. Except even that is not true: almost the whole population lives outside the cities. Billions of native Gallifreyans in their farms and homesteads, working through the day to feed themselves and us until the night-time comes...

Do you remember being just 7 years old? Those endless, restless nights, terrified of sleep because of the nightmares? And, if youre honest with yourself, what were those dreams about? Toclafane? Shakri? Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday? No the thing that every 7-year-old on Gallifrey truly dreads is turning 8. Being taken from their family and failing the selection. What will you fail to become, child? Soldier? Chancellery Guard? Time Lord?

Or, worse, will you pass, and spend all your lifetimes inside one of those bubbles? Forget your past life, until it comes naturally to you to recoil from the outside, shut it out, condemn it. Perhaps youll only cope with your sterile existence by shutting out all that life. Or by shutting yourself in.

THE CITADELS

T he Capitol and Arcadia, Gallifreys first and second cities two great metropolises of towers stretching up into the heavens, anchored by vast wheels whose supports and vaults reach deep into the bowels of the planet.

Lets begin at the heart of the Capitol, indeed the heart of Gallifrey. Sector 1s main tower holds the Panopticon. Every great event of state is held within this vast hexagonal chamber. (It is believed that each of its six sides honours a founding father of Gallifrey, but since nobody can agree who they all were, the point is moot.) It has seen presidential inaugurations and presidential resignations, and even presidential assassinations. Its large enough to hold many hundreds of Time Lords, and designed in such a way that every point in the chamber is visible from every other point. Its walls reach higher than the naked eye can see, with a series of viewing galleries circling at every level.